Thursday, July 31, 2014

These nails are almost painful for me to look at but I'm sharing anyway! My blog has always been about sharing the good with the bad; the successes with the failures....and while I don't mind the stamping on these, it's the nails, particularly the shape...or lack thereof, that are so bad! Back in April, I had cut down my nails and after I cut them while they were growing out, the middle finger broke not once, but twice. But that didn't stop me from painting my nails and stamping! I always share my nails when they are short too just to show that you don't need long nails to do some interesting stamping! This is what I came up with!

Started with a base of two coats of Sally Hansen Barracuda.

Natural light; shade.

Stamped clouds using white Konad special polish. (I deleted my notes on this mani by accident and can't readily find the plate number. Will update.)

Added hot air balloons the full size image from Apipila P.6, but isolated the larger hot air balloons from the image and placed on each finger individually using assortment of Sally Hansen Insta-dries. The basket is black Konad special polish.

Using same polishes and same image, added a few more of the smaller hot air balloons. Top coated to finish.

I have a bunch of mani's in archives that will be showing up at sometime featuring the nubs and poor nail shape...you are forewarned!

Monday, July 28, 2014

It's an overcast, raining day; after rain off and on most of the weekend as well as a lot of thunder and lightning the past two days, I thought it would be a good time to feature a bright summery polish on such a dreary day to brighten the day! This is a mani featuring a new indie polish maker; 10.1 Polish**!

Started with a base of two coats of 10.1 Snake Venom, no topcoat. 10.1 Snake Venom is a beautiful colour with a very light holo and added shimmer; perfect to wear on it's own, or a great base for stamping!

Different lighting. Polish colour is more true in the pix below (but this lighting gives me lobster hands all the time!)

Bottle shot.

My apologies to the creators of 10.1 Polish Snake Venom, but as soon as I seen this base on my nails, my first right away was to pair it with pink! To take such a cool, edgy polish name, then pair it with pink and then make it extremely girly....well, just seems wrong! In a good way! It's no secret that one of my favourite colour combinations is green and pink! But to make matters worse, I really girly upped 10.1 Snake Venom! Just seems wrong! But right or wrong, I love how this turned out!

I have some exciting news to share today.....I'm doing my first ever guest post today over at The Nails .....those who have been checking out nail blogs for a while now may remember Ivana from Ivana Thinks Pink; The Nails is her new blog!

Here's the mani I did for the guest post; please visit The Nails here to check it out!!

Thursday, July 24, 2014

You may have seen out in the blogesphere that Nail Polish Canada is doing this absolutely phenomenal giveaway with up to 200 (!!!) bottles of polish being offered in a giveaway! Here's the polish I nominated to include in the giveaway; Cirque Kaleidoscope.

For a base, I wanted a colour that wasn't in the glitter colours so that the glitters would pop; started with a base of two coats of Butter London Bramble, no topcoat. While there is purple glitter, it' not this dark.

(The shine on this is incredible; that's my arm mirrored in the thumb!) Topcoat would have made my application look a little better but I knew I was topping this with Cirque Kaleidoscope so no topcoat.

Added a coat of Cirque Kaleidoscope. (Again, no topcoat.)

While pretty with one coat, wasn't the glitter impact I was going for; so added a second. This is more of the look I was going for! I had no issues at all with the glitters laying flat even though I did top with topcoat, although I did have to do the dab application method to fill in a few areas that didn't have as much glitter as I would have liked. It is not that there is a shortage of glitter in this bottle or that it wasn't on the brush, but moreso to get it in the place I wanted! I found that I would apply it, and then when I wiped over it a second time to add more glitter, the first glitter swipe of glitter would move.....just easier in the end to dab!

Stamped using white Konad special polish using Sugar Bubbles SB022.

Sugar Bubbles SB022

Topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top to finish.

While I chose a darker base to highlight Cirque Kaleidoscope, I really don't think there is a colour that this wouldn't go well with! It is such a fun, bright polish with so many different colours and shapes of glitter.....I loved how this turned out!

Here's the raffleopter to enter the Nail Polish Canada giveaway! According to the rules, you can enter on this raffleopter as well as on the raffleopter of any other blogger who has nominated a polish! Go! Go! Go!

Monday, July 21, 2014

I don't know about you, but I'm a little hesitant to buy nail polish at the dollar store. It's one thing when you find $2 Essie's or Revlon's at Dollerama; you know they are just selling stock overages, but when you see a brand you've never heard of before, and in this case, I'm talking about Glam Doll, I was on the fence if I wanted to spend even the $1.25 for the bottle; I don't even recall seeing any mention of this brand out there in the blogesphere. Even at $1.25, it's still a waste of $1.25 if the polish is garbage! (But then, I guess even if it is garbage, you don't break the bank at $1.25 a bottle!) So I seen a new display of Glam Doll polishes at the local Dollar Tree not too long ago and picked up my first to try and used it this past weekend. As it turns out, my $1.25 polish buy worked out well this time as there were no issues at all with this polish!

Started with a base of two coats of Glam Doll Periwinkle, no topcoat. (The pix below was taken in natural daylight, overcast skies as I have no good artificial light source when I'm away on weekends.) While the polish was a tad on the thick side, two coats covered well, there were no application issues and overall, I think this is $1.25 of gorgeousness in a bottle! When I go to use again, I would add a couple drops of thinner just because my personal preference is polish on the thinner side versus thicker, but even without it, had no issues.

Added a layer of Vernis Classique by Cherimova Babes in Toyland on top for some glitter interest. (This was another great polish value find; $2.50 at Urban Planet.)

Stamped using Konad special polish using an image from LS-13.

Topped with HKGirl quick dry to finish.

This pix was taken the next day as I was trying to get good sun shot to show the holographic glitter as it really didn't show up too much in the overcast skies; just looks like silver glitter!

While it is slightly shown, you can also see no chipping or wear issues at all (although it was only 24 hours after but I've had more expensive polishes (*cough, cough Chanel*), chip in less time!

I went out and picked up a few more Glam Doll polishes as they had a wide array of colours on display. But for $1.25 a bottle....and the fact that they applied well....the price can't be beat!

Friday, July 18, 2014

I had an epic post planned today to round out Digit-al Dozen Countries and Cultures week featuring Canada. EPIC! Then got side tracked a little with a polish auction last night which tied up more time than I wanted; well, lo and behold, I didn't quite get all the mani's I wanted to do for this post. Yes, that was mani'S. It was going to be epic! Instead, I'll leave you with this. You probably have to be Canadian to get it; if you're not familiar with the rant, there a video at the bottom to watch if you aren't too familiar with this and are interested enough to know about it!

Started with a base of two coats each of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and Duri Taming of the Shrew, topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top to finish.

Stamped using red and white Konad special polishes using image from Nailways Back to Basics 123-ABC. (these are the middle size letters, fyi). Added dots with same stamping polish. Flag on thumb is from fauxnad m56. Placement of the letters wasn't the best and I'm sure with more practise, it would get better. Even these, there were some letters I did several times!

Topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top to finish.

I have have the nails finished from the post that was to be epic but is this instead. I'm sure they will show up at some point here!

Hopefully you've enjoyed all the Countries and Culture's mani's; I had a lot of fun doing them, and thanks to so many available plates now, I probably could have done Countries and Culture month! Great to have so many options!

Thursday, July 17, 2014

I hope you have been enjoying Digit-al Dozen week......I've been checking all the ladies posts daily and they have been fabulous...even if we have been picking a lot of the same countries! But there have been some different ones and really some out of the box and creative thinking mani's too....always amazes me what the ladies do for the themes....so much creativity! Here's my Day 4 mani featuring the Good O'l U.S. of A!

Started with a base of two coats each of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Duri Taming of the Shrew and p2 191 Gigantic; topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top.

Stamped using images from Messy Mansion MM15 on all fingers except index which is BM-H25. Stamping polishes used where white, black and red Konad special polishes and Mundo de Unas stamping polish #30.

BM-H25

MM15 (love that so many images are available in one plate!)

Before top coating, added a few random starts from MM15 to pinky and thumb and a few dots to the country image on the thumb; the dots didn't transfer that well so had to hand fill in and correct with remover...but removed too much on the pinky and then filled in, which is more obvious than I would have liked....if only I knew how to photoshop!

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

It's Day 3 of Digit-al Dozen Does Countries and Cultures. I've been amused that there are so many countries (189 to 196 according to Glowstar's blog post here) and the ladies in the group are picking a lot of the same countries! So last night when I was sitting down to do my nails, I thought no one has done a mani highlighting Australia so I thought it was safe to do (not that it matters!). Then, this morning, seen The Crumpet did a post today featuring Australia! Oh, well. I think the only way I'm going to be able to do a mani on a country that no one else has picked is chose somewhere very, very remote...(not withstanding The Crumpet did Antarctica already here!) but the likelihood they have stamping plates for a remote location is slim, so I'm sure I'll be posting the same as others anyway. While I haven't seen Canada yet (and am saving mine for Friday), there are other Canadians in the group so I'm sure I won't be the only either. Not that it matters, I'm just thinking a little variety seeing how there are 189+ countries......but from what I've seen, there's been good variety in the group even if we are all doing mani's of a lot of the same countries! Anyway, here's what I came up with representing Australia!

Started with a base of two coats each of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and p2 191 Gigantic, topped with KBShimmer clearly on top. Sponged accent nails using CND Flashpoint, Bicylce and Electric Orange.

Added koala from MoYou Tourist Collection-19 on middle, then top coated in preparation of leadlighting.

MoYou Explorer Collection-05

MoYou Explorer Collection-20

MoYou Tourist Collection-19

Konad A1

Unfortunately, I didn't take pix as I went along, but after filling in middle image with jelly polishes, added more stamped images; FUN 12 (ozotic on index), MJ IV (surfer on index), MoYou Tourist Collection-19 (lizard on index), MoYou Explorer Collection-05 (top kangaroo on ring); Konad A1 ICNA (flag and AUS on thumb, bottom kangaroo on ring and small koala face on pinky), MoYou Explorer Collection-20 on pinky using black and white Konad special polishes. Added small koala face on pinky from the Konad plate as well. I top coated the ring and pinky and used various polishes to fill in images and fill backgrounds. The wording ozotic is Mundo de Unas 30. Lastly, used a brush and hand painted red in flag on thumb using red Konad special polish.

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About Me

I discovered Konad a few years ago and it has captivated me ever since! I have a large polish and plate stash that keeps on growing! The biggest challenge I have lately is...what polish with what plate!
If you're interested in a polish swap, or want to contact me, I can be reached at: mrsrexy at gmail dot com.